Port · Hadramawt: the Al Rashid of Tarim and the tribes · as at first light, 1 January 1200

al-Shihr

The sea gate of Hadramawt and the Mahra country, an open roadstead on the coast.

Al-Idrisi (1154) calls it the chief town of the Mahra and says the Mahra live on dried fish, dates and milk and breed the swiftest camels. It ships frankincense, horses and dried fish to India, and the caravans from the wadi come down to it.

Who holds it

Name
Not pinned (the Al Iqbal, also called the Al Faris)
Title
Lord of al-Shihr
Since
Not pinned
Confidence
low

Lord in 1200

The Al Iqbal (Al Faris); the lord's name is not pinned.

How things stand that morning

Held by the Al Iqbal; Abd Allah ibn Rashid of Tarim covets it.

Charter

None known: southern Arabian towns had no charters; the lord or his deputy, the judge (qadi) and the notables answer for the town.

Council

Not recorded.

Communities

Arabs and Mahra; visiting merchants from Aden and India (not pinned for 1200).

Fairs and markets

No fair dates recorded for 1199-1200.

Militia

Not recorded for 1199-1200.

Walls and castle

Not described for 1200.

Trade and crafts

Frankincense from Dhofar and the Mahra country, horses, dried fish (also fed to camels), ambergris; Indian cloth and goods coming in. Fishing.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

  1. 599 AH (1202-1203)Besieged by Abd Allah ibn Rashid.Depends on: The quarrel continuing. Stopped by: A settlement.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The town is well known from al-Idrisi and later travellers; its holders for 1200 only from the Hadrami chronicles.

Primary sources for Hadramawt

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

  • History of the Observant Traveller (A Traveller in Thirteenth-Century Arabia), Ibn al-Mujawir (Jamal al-Din Yusuf ibn Ya'qub) (about 1226 to 1232). A merchant-traveller's description of western and southern Arabia a generation after 1200: Mecca and the Hijaz ports, the Red Sea crossing, Zabid and the Tihama, Aden with its customs and tariffs, the Hadramawt coast, Dhofar and Oman, Socotra, and the opposite African shore at Zeila and the Dahlak islands. Read online

Sources and studies

  1. 'Rasidiler' (the Al Rashid of Hadramawt), TDV Islam Ansiklopedisi (after al-Shatiri, Adwar al-tarikh al-Hadrami; Salih al-Hamid, Tarikh Hadramawt; Ibn Awad, Jawahir tarikh al-Ahqaf; Yahya ibn al-Husayn, Ghayat al-amani; G. R. Smith, 'Hadramawt', EI2 Suppl.)
  2. al-Idrisi, Nuzhat al-mushtaq (1154), second clime, sixth section (Arabic Wikisource): al-Shihr and the Mahra, Hadramawt, Sur and Qalhat

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.